Sections

You’ll have spotted how the vast majority of this review has dwelt on the AMD chipset and that’s because there is surprisingly little to say about the Foxconn A7DA-S. The layout is very tidy with the main power, ATA133 and floppy connectors next to the memory slots and the six SATA connectors are laid down to avoid connection problems. Foxconn includes one eSATA port on a bracket so you can convert one of the ports from internal to external duties.

The front panel headers are colour coded and sit next to the Power and Reset micro buttons and there are four USB headers across the foot of the board. Turning to the I/O panel there are two legacy PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard, the HDMI, DVI and VGA ports for the HD 3300 graphics, six mini-jacks for audio, Gigabit LAN, four USB 2.0 ports and one Firewire port. Having a mere four USB ports is disappointing and the lack of digital audio output is also a bit of a shame, but you can undo most of the damage if your case carries a few front-mounted USB ports. The dual graphics slots are widely spaced and will present you with no problems with any CrossFire configuration you may wish to use.

That leaves the price. This is a new model and we only have an SRP to work with, but even so the £114 being asked for the A7DA-S looks a bit steep and we’d be much happier if it was £70 or £75.

Verdict

Foxconn has used the new AMD 790GX chipset in a workmanlike motherboard that will successfully overclock a Black Edition Phenom processor. So, though the price is a little steep and some of the new features are awaiting driver support, if you’re after more overclocking headroom on such a processor then it’s a good place to start.